Kindergarden curriculum

This is similar to the "How is your child doing in K" thread, but since it is another month since that started, and many have already commented on that one, I decided to start a new one. This one is "How are you and your child managing the new Kindergarden expectations?"

As noted on the other K thread, Kindergarden really is "the new first grade". Anyone else get a folder outlining the curriculum/expectations for the year and feeling a bit panicky? I felt pretty good about our ability to ace K going in. Grace met all of the cognitive goals in pre-k (actually she met them at 20 months, but due to the ASD the trick is getting her to generalize and perform in new situations.) She was doing formal reading instruction over the summer and holding her own, and when we had the SEIT here for two weeks in August she couldn't believe how much Grace can do in a secure environment. Grace has always done great one on one with me at home, and I count on reinforcing goals at home.

Now Grace is gone eight hours (six in school and an hour bus ride each way) and DOES NOT want to work on academic goals when she gets home. But we got a big folder at open house with lists of sight words broken down by quarters, math objectives and activities, etc. On top of that there are web pages from the school so parents can stay on top of the curriculum and weekly newsletters telling us what to do with our kids at home. I am having serious panic attacks (okay, not REAL ones) about keeping up. It is a miracle that Grace is successfully mainstreamed, but she still has problems filtering out back ground noise to processes what the teacher is saying, joint attention, processing questions, being part of a group, etc.

Anyhow, just wondering what your Kindergardeners are learning and doing at school and at home (in support of school objectives). Are the kids already broken down into reading groups? Anyone else having more difficulty getting theirs to focus on academic activities at home,since they started school?

Comments (2)

Yes, there are definitely expectations but they're just reviewing the sounds right now and doing some reading. I feel like DD is a little ahead and a lot of it is repeat from preschool. As far as homework goes, we have to read every day and review letter recognition and sounds review. They have to bring show and tell to represent the sound they are working on. They also have a little activity sheet that we work on a little each day, like find everybody's shoes in your house and line them up from longest to shortest etc. I don't think they are in reading groups quiet yet.
Socially DD is doing great considering she's still 4! She's a great listener and has dealt well with some sticky situations despite the fact that she's very emotional at home. Full time K has been a huge adjustment for us, parents, teachers and especially the students, but so far so good!
DD loooves doing school work at home. I have a 2nd grader and my kindergartener wants to do as much as big sis which is way more than she's required.

We just had our first parent-teacher-student conference on Friday (we have 4 in the year!), and it was very low key. The teacher gave us a reading/writing list and a math skills list for the year, but she said many times not to worry and that there is plenty of time. We haven't had any homework yet. On the other hand, DS comes home and wants to "work" like at school! So he likes to sit down and copy books... he'll just open a book and start copying it in a notebook. He looks like he knows what he is doing, but he cannot read yet :). His handwriting is improving a lot with this practice, though. I asked the teacher if we should be doing some extra work at home and she said no, just keep doing whatever you are doing, he is doing great.

The very fact that DS wants to do school-like activities in the evenings and weekends reassures me that we did pick the right school for him. He is making lots of progress spelling and sounding words both in spanish and english. We speak only spanish at home, so that is a bit confusing, but his teacher is a very good spanish speaker too, so she picks up on the mistakes that are due to DS being bilingual and gives him a bit of extra help.

Our school has multiage classrooms, K and 1 are combined. There are 9 kindergarteners and 9 1st graders, and they are paired one of each for reading and writing workshops. The 1st graders help the kindergarteners a lot. The multiage setting makes it very normal to have different degrees of ability for any given task, so there are kindergarteners working at 1st grade level and viceversa. They cater to each kid's progress, they each get a big folder where the teacher places "right for me" books, and writing workshop books, they are all different, and they cover all skill levels so every kid is working at their skill level at all times.

Before the year started, I was a bit worried about DS getting tired of school, he is so eager to learn when he is one on one with me, and I was worried the structure of school might just dampen the enthusiasm. But this school has done the opposite!